Chapter Two
Four years later
Logan Wallace was a patient man.
Always had been.
Hell, patient didn’t even begin to describe him. He figured as far as patience was concerned, he ought to rank right up there with the saints. He was content to sit back and wait—watching and debating every little step he took in life. Damn near everything in life could be gotten if one was patient enough. That was what Logan had always believed.
Unfortunately, though, his patience was about ready to bite him on the ass.
Bo’s sudden return home six months ago had come at a seriously bad time for him. She could have come home at any time during the past four years but she had picked a time when he was in the middle of a very ugly undercover case. It had him working nineteen hours a day so he’d decided to wait until he could actually focus completely on her instead of the meth-dealing bastards he was investigating. Working the case from the inside, he was able to make it home maybe once a week or so. Hell, Bo had been home two weeks before he’d even known.
It had taken two precious months to close that case. After everything had been tied up he was finally free to pursue Bo. He’d made a few overtures, called her, gone by to see her but she had retreated each and every time. Even though he’d been pissed off and frustrated, part of him understood. He’d moved too fast last time. Regaining the ground he’d lost was going to take time.
So he had waited, willing to give her all the time she needed after how badly he’d messed up before. But that bad call was going to cost him everything, because during that time Bo had started dating his damn cousin.
And now they were getting married? Who in hell got married after a three-month engagement? And they’d only dated for two months before that.
Married! Bo was getting married!
Son of a bitch. Married to Logan’s cousin. David McNear had always had a thing for Bo. Logan had known that. Hell, half the men in the county had a thing for her. But Logan had also known that Bo was his. He’d waited for her. He’d bided his time. Six years older than she, he had sat back and watched as she’d gone from coltish teen to rebellious coed to sleek, sexy, svelte woman. And he had waited.
She was his, after all.
He’d known it the minute she had climbed out of her father’s truck when she had moved into the old ramshackle farmhouse across the road from his parents’ home. Logan had taken one look into those big, misty gray eyes and he’d known. He’d felt like a damn pervert for it too—in his sophomore year in college and drooling over a high school girl.
He had brooded every time she had batted her lashes at some high school punk and he had silently gritted his teeth through the three years she had been away at college in Chicago. Bo had graduated from high school a half year early. She’d also been taking college courses in high school so she had graduated from college a full year early.
That damn investigation. If it hadn’t been for that, he could have gone after Bo the minute she returned to Kentucky. Instead he had been forced to wait two long, awful months and that had given David the chance to work his way into Bo’s life.
“I’m going to kill the bastard.” Shit. What if David had touched her? Logan clenched his hands and fought the urge to plow his fist into a wall. If he killed David, it would make the next family get-together really tense.
Logic dictated that it wasn’t completely fair to blame David. David didn’t know how Logan felt about Bo. Hell, Bo didn’t know how Logan felt. She’d been running from him for close to four years now.
Since that night, their second date. The night he’d fucked her blind, marking her, binding her to him. Or so he had thought. But when he had gone to her the next day, she’d already left. Spent almost four years running around the globe. Milan, Tokyo, London. When Bo did something, she did it to the extreme. He knew that about her but he hadn’t expected her to run from him.
He still didn’t understand why she’d run, or really why she had been avoiding him. Each of her visits home had been quick and spur of the moment. Will never knew when to expect her. The few times he had seen her on those random visits, she was careful never to be alone with him. As often as possible, she’d avoided seeing him altogether.
She wouldn’t talk about that night. She acted like she’d rather that night had never happened and part of him wished it hadn’t, because now he had even less of her than before. Before, they’d been friends. Now?
Now, it felt like—nothing.
Logan had been terrified of rushing her again after how badly he had screwed up before. He’d wanted to give her time. He’d screwed up, after all, by moving too fast and scaring her away. If waiting was going to be the penance he had to pay in order to win her back, so be it.
All that time, Logan had waited so patiently—all those years while she was busy growing up, while she was in college—he’d waited all that time. But then when it was the most critical that he take care, he’d moved too fast and scared her away.
He didn’t think he had any other choice but to give her a little more time. He loved her more than he loved to breathe and he knew they belonged together. He could wait until she saw it. Even if it killed him. He’d been telling himself that ever since she had run away. It was the only way he stayed sane.
When she hooked up with David, just the thought of those two together had been enough to have him seeing red but he had kept it together because he knew Bo belonged with him and sooner or later, Bo would come to her senses. A few months, that was all it would take for Bo to see that David wasn’t right for her. A few months and she’d be bored out of her mind.
But he’d waited too long.
Instead of dropping David after a few months, she was marrying him.
“Bastard,” he muttered. David had been one of Logan’s best friends growing up. They were close and not just because they were related. But Logan wanted to pound his cousin into the ground.
Marrying Bo. No. No fucking way.
Maybe Logan should have tried to talk some sense into her sooner. Like the second he’d seen that rock on her hand. But give a guy a break—he’d been in shock. What in hell was she thinking? Marrying David. Shit.
Apparently a prolonged engagement was a load of bull too because in exactly two weeks, they were walking down the aisle at St. Paul’s and Logan was expected to be one of the groomsmen. “My ass.”
“You’re a moron.” The words echoed in the room and Logan wondered if he had gone and lost his mind over this. “You’re talking to yourself again.”
Logan glanced back and realized that Dustin was standing at the doorway to his office. It looked like his brother had been standing there a while. “Go away.”
“You going to keep standing there or go out and talk to her?”
Logan closed his eyes. He hadn’t told Dustin a damn thing about his feelings for Bo but then again, Dusty was his brother. They shared the same dark brown hair, though Dusty wore his long enough to pull it back in a stubby ponytail. They had the same long, rangy frame. Dusty’s eyes were a dreamy blue, surrounded with spiky lashes that had put him on the wrong end of serious teasing as he grew up. Half the time, Dusty seemed unaware of anything outside his horses and his land. But Dusty was a hell of a lot more aware than most people gave him credit for.
Dusty was sharp and too damn observant. The two of them knew each other as only brothers could. Logan didn’t have to say a thing to Dustin, because Dustin knew. Dustin probably always knew. Which meant Dustin was probably aware that Logan was losing it.
He turned around and leaned back against the wall. He sighed tiredly and rubbed his hands over his face. “It’s too late, Dusty.”
“Ain’t too late until she says ‘I do’,” Dustin said. Then he lifted a shoulder in a shrug and said, “But you’d better say something before then. Can’t believe you’ve let it go this far.”
Logan mumbled under his breath. He looked out the window. Out in the distance, he could see Bo. She was riding
Mist—or she had been riding. Right now, though, she was still as a statue.
He couldn’t see her clearly, but he didn’t have to see her face to know it was her.
Marrying David. The words kept circling through his head like a litany. “Shit. I’m going insane.”
Dustin laughed. “Ya think? Go talk to her, Logan.” But Dusty’s words barely registered and Logan was only distantly aware that Dusty had left.
Going insane. It wasn’t a far stretch, as far as he was concerned. Insanity would explain how he’d gone this long without saying anything.
He’d gotten measured for a fucking tux. But damn if he’d wear it. David probably wouldn’t forgive him but Logan wasn’t standing up at the church and watching as the woman he loved married somebody else.
He stared at her, watching as she sat on Mist and stared out into the distance. He didn’t know what she was looking at. Probably the impossibly blue sky. The sun was shining so brightly, it hurt the eyes. He could tell she had a camera but even if he hadn’t seen it, he’d know she would have one on her somewhere.
Bo’s cameras were as important to her a cop’s gun. Not just a tool of the trade but something she considered vital. She was probably out there taking pictures of the terrain or the clouds drifting through the sky or something like that.
Logan clenched his jaw. He wanted to hit something. Wanted to beat something bloody—preferably his cousin’s affable face. He just bet that Bo was about as happy as could be, as content as the proverbial cat and cream. Daydreaming about her upcoming wedding and how perfect her life with David was going to be.
At that, Logan laughed. There wasn’t much humor in the sound, though. He felt so bitter, it almost made him sick. He knew Bo. Her marriage to David would be sheer hell for her. She’d have David wrapped around her finger and ground into the dirt in no time flat.
David had the problem of wanting to take care of a woman. Coddle her. Protect her. And in Bo’s case, that would be smothering her. She might like the pampering for a while but it wouldn’t take long for the novelty of that to wear off and then she’d be miserable.
Bo didn’t realize it yet but she would be miserable.
David would be miserable too. “Stopping that wedding would be doing them a favor,” Logan muttered. He scrubbed a hand over his face and turned away from the window. He caught sight of a picture on his desk. It was the only picture on the desk, one of the very few he had in the house.
It was Bo. He’d taken it himself one weekend when she’d come home from college for few days. They’d gone out riding one fall day and she’d spent most of the time taking pictures with the Canon EOS Rebel her dad had given her just before she left for school.
She had looked so beautiful that day. So happy. So perfect. It had been before she chopped her hair off and Logan could still remember how she’d looked, that long thick hair escaping from the braid to frame her face, her eyes bright with laughter.
He’d wanted to grab her, haul her against him and kiss her until she couldn’t see straight. Then he wanted to strip her naked, spread her thighs and taste her. Fuck her hard and deep and then do it all over again but slower.
“You going to tell me about school or just snap pictures all day?” he’d asked her when they stopped for lunch. When she’d lowered the camera, he had grabbed it away from her. He’d planned on just putting the camera back in the case but he’d looked at her. Grinning, with her hair blowing across her face. He’d snapped a quick picture of her before tucking the camera away.
She had looked happy.
Logan’s lids drooped and he thought of the way she’d looked Christmas Eve. She had been smiling, yeah. She had looked happy enough. But David didn’t make her face glow. She didn’t look as happy with David as she had looked with Logan.
“Why in the hell is this happening?” he muttered.
But he knew the answer to that. It was happening because he had let it happen. Logan closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the windowpane. How many mistakes was he going to make with her? Rushing her like he had. Then, when maybe he should have moved a little faster, he hadn’t.
He should have gone after her. It didn’t matter if she was seeing David or not.
That was what he should have done.
Ain’t too late until she says I do.
But now it was too late. Logan had to do something before she married David but he didn’t know what. It wasn’t purely selfish. Logan wanted her, had always wanted her, but it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t even the bone-deep knowledge that she belonged with him. To him. Sounded archaic but hey, there it was. She belonged to him and even though she didn’t know, he belonged to her.
Both of them would be miserable marrying anybody else. He wanted her happy. If he thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell that she would be happy with David, he’d walk her down the aisle himself. He might drink himself into oblivion and stay drunk for weeks after but he would do it. If it would make her happy.
Slowly, he turned and looked back out the window. She was still out there, high on the ridge. He could do that—give her away to another man. He could do whatever it took to make her happy, no matter how much it hurt him. He loved her—what else could he do but want her happy?
“You’re marrying the wrong guy, Bo.”
Ain’t too late until she says I do.
Bridal jitters.
Hell, these weren’t jitters. Jitters sounded like such a small thing. Like aftershocks or something. She wasn’t having jitters—she was having quakes that would register 6.0, complete with emergency alerts and fire truck sirens.
The warning system was all in her head of course but every time she thought about the wedding, it was with a pealing of alarm bells that made her gut tie itself into knots.
Up until a few days ago, she’d had herself convinced she wasn’t making a mistake. She just needed time to get used to the idea of getting married. She was twenty-five years old. She could take care of herself and had been doing just that since she’d landed her first job, a pure stroke of luck while she was still in college.
Bo had money in the bank, she had a great career and she had a man who adored her. What more could she want? Logically, there shouldn’t be anything.
So why was she so miserable?
From the corner of her eye, she saw a horse and rider approach. She didn’t even have to see him to know who it was. Logan. Nor did she have to see him to react. Her skin felt hot and tight. Her heart banged away within her chest with a force that made her breathless. Her muscles felt like putty. Only one person on earth had that effect on her and she’d been running from him for four years.
Like she sensed her rider’s mood swing, Mist shifted and Bo reached out a hand, soothing the mare.
The bastard always did this to her. She’d had a serious crush on him the entire time she was growing up. Getting away from him at college had seemed to make it a little easier and it had been so damn necessary. Bo liked keeping a certain distance between herself and everybody else. Except her dad, and even with him, there were some boundaries she didn’t want to cross.
Her mother’s death had hit both of them hard and William Martin had always been there for Bo but he never really recovered from Isabo’s death. Bo didn’t ever want to go through the pain her dad had gone through. Sometimes it made her feel like a coward.
Bo looked like her mom, though she did have her dad’s eyes. She’d been named Isabo Dawn, after her mother. She’d been Bo pretty much since birth. Her memories of her mother were vague but they centered around a woman so pretty that she’d looked like an angel in Bo’s eyes. She’d loved to laugh. She’d loved to dance.
Isabo had loved life, plain and simple.
Bo preferred to hide from it. And she’d been doing pretty well, until Logan. He’d shattered her defenses four years ago and if she let him close enough, he’d do it again.
All the more reason to marry David, she told herself. She liked David. She even loved him.
He was funny. He was sweet. He made her laugh. She’d marry him and in a year or two, they would talk about having kids.
Maybe. The kid thing was still a maybe for her. She might be able to maintain distance with those around her but having kids would shoot that straight to hell. So the jury was still out on that one. David had already told her that it was her decision.
Bo grimaced. Too often, David’s answers were along those lines. Whatever makes you happy, Bo.
Lately, Bo had been thinking, How about an argument? If an argument will make me happy, will you give me one?
David didn’t argue. He persuaded and cajoled or he went along with her. Bo hated to admit it but that was fast becoming boring.
Logan’s never boring. The minute that little voice whispered those words inside her head, Bo wanted to scream. No. Logan wasn’t boring. Her palms went damp just thinking about him. If she took off now, she just might be able to avoid him. She’d been doing that for too long.
Ever since… Bo winced and shied away from that thought. She didn’t want to think about that night. She couldn’t think about that night.
“You going to take off running again, Bo?”
Shit. She took a deep breath and hoped her nerves weren’t showing on her face. She’d gotten very, very good at hiding her emotions but Logan tended to shatter her control.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bo lied as she looked at him. Mist shifted a little as Logan and Dervish drew closer. Absently, Bo stroked a hand down the mare’s neck. She made herself look at him as she responded and wished she hadn’t.
“Don’t you?” There was a smile on his face. A cool, knowing smile that was completely maddening. And sexy as hell. Everything about Logan was sexy as hell. He was just an inch or two taller than her. She was five-nine and she liked being able to meet his eyes head-on, without looking up.
She loved his shoulders. Always had. She loved watching him while he worked with his brother in the stable, worn cotton clinging to the sleek muscles underneath. She liked how he looked in a suit. An agent with the local DEA department, Logan was just as comfortable in a suit and tie as he was in denim and cotton. He spent a lot of his time undercover, which meant he spent more time in the casual clothes but he could wear a suit better than most of the male models Bo had met.
Silk Scarves and Seduction Page 10
